The Emperor's work
by Darkchild130
Summary: An Eversor assassin.  From his point of view.  M for violence
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, if you took the time to read this please review it, I appreciate constructive crticism as much as praise so tell me what you think :)**

**Also, if you like my writing please read my Crysis story for something with a (little) bit more depth, as that's the story I'm currently working on.**

**PART 1**

_**++Automated message running…no.3789++**_

_**+DANGER+**_

_**Unit 217763-34A combat enhancing chemical stimulants at dangerously low levels**_

_**Proceed to pick up point immediately for debrief and re-administration**_

_**Cogitating…...**_

_**+Trace unsuccessful locator Beacon not found+**_

_**Cogitating…...**_

_**Proceed on foot to nearest known RV point**_

_**++END++**_

My name is Andrei Dharmer.

I smile as I remember this, this is the first thing I have known about myself in a long time.

Nobody else, alive or dead has ever known my name, for I stole it from a dead Munitorium worker when I was 5 years old.

It was the last thing I heard him say before the gangers stabbed him, leaving him to bleed out in the darkness of the alley where I was hidden, laying still among the refuse where I had just been hunting for food.

I had just escaped from the orphanarium, not content to toil my way to an early death in the work houses of the underhive and was nearing starvation, my body resembling a bag of bones and skin.

To this day I can not fathom why that man chose his name as his last words, nor do I care, but I learnt a lot from the ganger's actions that day, particularly about survival.

It was simple, if you do not have, take.

I have been here for approximately fifty seven standard years.

I know this because my mission timer stopped that long ago, my tactical overlay informs me everyday of this fact.

For the last month or so my mind has become more coherent, the random thoughts and memories coalescing into some semblance of intelligence.

Am I intelligent?

I am intelligent, I know this because my order does not recruit stupid people.

The rest is a confusing mixture of half truths and feelings, a mess of contradictions and chaotic recall, starting with absolute clarity at my youth.

I remember my capture, being dragged into the back of an Inquisitorial Rhino troop carrier after stabbing two arbite enforcers that stumbled across me attempting to rob a habitation block in the hive of my birth.

I had used an improvised shiv, made from a plastek spoon, filed into a point.

I was 6 years old.

The look on the Inquisitor's face was a curious mix of disgust and admiration, the grizzled old man looking at me with a morbid fascination I didn't understand.

To me it was terrifying.

There was a long journey.

The Inquisitor came to my cell to feed me and talk to me every day, telling me about a mighty being called the Emperor, and that if I was good enough, I would be chosen to serve him.

I liked the Inquisitor, he gave me food.

After the journey I found myself among other children, all of us silent and assembled in ranks on the bare stone floor of a gigantic theatre, robed giants pacing up and down to our front, regarding us with silent stares.

The boy next to me started to sob, tears cascading down his young features as he cried, leaning on me for support.

I regarded him and immediately judged him worthless.

I pushed him to the ground, annoyed at the physical contact, and looked around the aisles in front of me.

I wondered where the Inquisitor had gone.

I remember the tests, endless trials of body and mind, along with thousands of other boys and girls at a bleak, featureless facility worlds away.

I just did as I was told at this time, fearful of my captors, deciding early on that compliance was the best way of staying alive.

Others were not so fortunate.

The weak, feeble minded or defiant were mercilessly punished, flogged, shot or lobotomised into child servitors in front of our eyes as a warning to others.

It fuelled my desire to live, and I pushed myself as hard as any 6 year old could.

I didn't want to die like that, I knew I was better.

I specifically remember the look of dismay on the Inquisitor's face. It was the first time I had seen him in weeks and I was actually pleased at his presence, my childish mind latching onto the only thing I recognised in a lonely place.

My face lit up upon his arrival and he suppressed a smile, his grim facade fading for the slightest of moments.

He stood at the back of the small interview room where I sat many psychological tests.

The faceless adept would ask me torrents of random and senseless questions, none of which I understood at the time, but answered as honestly as I could.

It was strange to me, they always asked my opinions, nobody have ever done that before.

"What would you do if…."

"How do you feel about…"

"What do you think when…"

It frustrated me and made no sense.

A the end of this particularly long session, the adept told me to stay still while he talked to the Inquisitor.

They spoke quietly, the Inquisitor's tone terse, bordering on angry while the Adept used words I had never heard.

Sociopath.

Borderline Psychotic.

Incompatible.

After a time the Inquisitor seemed to concede to whatever was being said and turned to look at me one last time, only for a second.

To think back now, the Inquisitor looked almost sad, as though he had lost something important and knew he couldn't get it back, but the look was fleeting and he said nothing as he departed.

Had I failed?

I felt a stab of panic when he left, instinctively reacting, preparing myself to escape should they try and kill me.

I knew the Inquisitor was never coming back.

Giving me food was the first and last act of kindness I ever experienced.

Another man appeared, stepping from the corner of the room as though he had been present the whole time and I had simply failed to see him.

He was robed in black, his vestments totally without markings and his bald head was covered in scars and inlaid with what looked like intricate circuitry covering his entire scalp.

This man regarded me with dead eyes, staring at me, analyzing for the longest time before nodding to the adept and leaving.

I remember his movement made absolutely no sound.

I remember training.

Running so hard I thought my lungs would burst, fighting for days without food or water, sometimes without light or even air.

Fighting without end, using any tools to hand, using nothing but our own bodies and the environment, all the while being told we are living weapons.

The fear is also without end, fear of the trainers, fear of failure, fear of death.

Each day I stare up at the robed man who instructs us, his shaved head and gnarled features embodying the emperor's will to me, knowing that he would snuff my life out in a second if I were to be found wanting.

Indoctrination, learning to love the emperor, learning about the ruinous powers and the danger they represented, learning how to hate with such purity that the emotion alone would protect us.

We were educated, first through hypnotic flash training and later by hardwired datastream, taught everything the Imperium knew about it's surroundings, cultures, beliefs, and how to exploit them all for the kill.

I remember my first kill vividly, age 9.

Chancing across another trainee, my quarry, in the training pits.

They had been configured into claustrophobic corridors, with deafening white noise and strobing lighting providing the backdrop for the hunt.

The strobes had caused my fellow initiate to have some sort of seizure, his body in a kind of spastic spasm when I found him, vomit covering the floor and walls.

It was a simple case of strangling the life out of him while he couldn't defend himself.

The exercise was meant to stop at first blood, but even at that age I understood that his condition made him worthless to the order, better to end his pain then leave him a mind scrubbed servitor.

As the custodians dragged the lifeless corpse away I remember deciding that I would struggle to gain pleasure doing the Emperor's holy work.


	2. Chapter 2

The surgeries began, age 12.

Pain, on such a level I could not even pass out for my entire body was screaming for it to stop, every nerve ending on fire as I was cut and flayed without anaesthetic.

Focusing through gritted teeth clenched so hard they would eventually crack, I stared at the Data screen on the ceiling of the operating room.

It informed me, in exquisite detail, exactly what was being done to me.

Though their exact meanings are lost to me now, I remember words like _Nanomachines, cybernetic skeletal augmentation, cerebral cortex restructuring, genetic alteration, combat stimulant delivery, ocular membrane implants._

Before this point, I would have taken a keen interest in the specifics.

After the surgeries, the end result was all that mattered.

Age 16.

I find it easier to focus now, hate guides my every thought.

My body is a marvel of engineering, I can hear twin hearts pumping in my chest as I sprint non-stop for over an hour, hypertrophic muscles never tiring or slowing down.

I can punch through ceramite battle plate with my bare hands, make complex tactical decisions before my fore-brain has even registered the situation I'm in, my augmented brain hardwired to make _everything _an instinct_._

The training intensifies, I am thrown into every scenario imaginable, sometimes stripped of equipment, other times carrying my full loadout.

My weapons become an extension of my body, Executor pistol, power blade, neuro gauntlet, sensor array and my own biomechanical body all working in perfect concert to make me something more than the sum of my parts.

They are all perfectly functional, like me, lacking anything other than potency and a purity of purpose.

My weapons are another part of me now, closer than any kin I have known, for I too am a weapon.

I don't even notice that out of the hundreds of recruits dragged from their homes with me, there are but a handful remaining. It's not important, there are enemies to kill.

Age 17 and I'm issued a mask that resembles a skull, it's grinning visage designed to terrify my victims.

I hate it, the crudeness of the gesture is insulting.

I destroy the servitor that hands it to me, bludgeoning the unholy creature to death as soon as the mask is in place.

It's presence is comforting, maybe I was wrong.

They tell me that I am death incarnate, a walking apocalypse, the emperor's wrath made physical form.

These words mean nothing to me, blaring over a vox net as I stand in the fighting pits sheathed in armoured synskin and full combat rig, my trainers now too afraid to stand in front of me, lest I judge them wanting.

I stand motionless for days in my mask listening to my rhythmic breathing, calculating every possible scenario for finding and killing the people that did this to me, for I am surely a product of the most grievous tech heresy.

They made an error when deciding to educate me well, for they too must face judgement in front of the emperor for their heresies.

It is most frustrating.

Then I hear the only words that matter.

"Eversor unit 217763-34A prepare to deploy."

My tactical overlay instructs me to move to designated spot in the facility, a grid reference I instantly recognise as the main docking bay.

It unnecessarily provides a map in the corner of my vision, I ignore it as I committed every detail of the facility to memory years before.

The doors to the training pit open, my adrenaline spikes and I begin to run.

I cover the mile to the docking bay in just under two minutes and find myself inside a small, unmarked ship of unknown design.

I am instructed to climb inside the waiting chamber, being informed that the ship is automatic and that it will take me to my destination.

I instantly comply, anything to allow me to serve the Emperor faster.

The chamber slams shut on me, freezing chemicals pump in furiously while a series of mechadentrite probes insert into the uplink ports along the length of my spine.

My last clear memory is of the same trainer from years ago, staring through frosted plastek, muttering unheard prayers at me before moving to press something out of my periphery.

Then darkness.

The rest is a blur.

The imperfect art of mind wiping gives me nothing but jumbled glimpses of an existence barely lived, thousands of screaming faces, human, mutant, xenos and worse all falling to blade and bolt and bomb.

My mind is a mess, but the muscle memory can never be removed, my body remembers better than I, feelings of impact and injury coming to the surface as I struggle to make sense of it for a short while.

The satisfying jolt of bolter recoil in my arm, the moment of resistance as my blade cleaves flesh and bone and armour, the smooth sliding sensation as my neural gauntlet invades heretic flesh.

The act alone is never enjoyable, for the hate is too overpowering, but I feel great joy at every heretic or alien removed from the worlds of the holy imperium.

That is all that matters.

"Exitus Acta Probat."

The outcome justifies the deed.

I decide not to concentrate on it, it is confusing enough without dwelling on the matter.

I keep my focus on my internal cogitators and tactical overlay, for when my body is frozen the solid state electronics are not, hardened against such conditions they keep recording, keeping track of my movements through space and most importantly, keeping track of time.

As of now I have been active for 894 years.

I allow myself a moment of pleasure as I think back to the scum who made me what I am, the passage of time has surely killed them all, even without me there to end them they could not escape the Emperor's judgement.

In purely mission terms I have lived a mere ten years since my deployment, not regarding these 57 years spent in captivity.

Ten years of constant, unrelenting combat, 532 missions, bringing pain and violent death to the enemies of the emperor.

Though individual memories elude me, I can piece together enough fragments to build a picture of what happened.

Every time was roughly the same, I would drop, normally right on top of the target area, butcher my way to the primary and terminate it as quickly as possible.

The details would change, landscapes, length of mission, sometimes I would be grievously wounded, barely able to crawl back to my retrieval craft, others I would walk out without a scratch on my frame.

The enemies varied more than anything.

Planetary governors, deviant eldar, orks, necrons, astartes both loyal and traitor, warp entities of the vile ruinous powers, mechanicum freaks, inquisitors, guard commanders, all fell to my wrath.

Their voices taunt me, each individual roar and scream merging into one, unending strangled cry that fills my mind.

I ignore it. Let paltry weaknesses effect the minds of men, I am a weapon and therefore unconcerned.

For the emperor.


	3. Chapter 3

I focus now on my halted mission timer, trying to recall exactly why it stopped.

It is hard, but there was never a mind wipe after the last mission, so slowly the memories are plucked from the maelstrom of my mind and fitted together to form a logical sequence.

Target information fills my mind as the drop pod breaks the planetary atmosphere.

Planetary data downloads, flitting statistics of telemetry, geography, weather patterns, tithes, population numbers, places of tactical importance.

It goes on and on, a lengthy deluge of important information. I don't care.

Mission background.

Dark Eldar raiding forces have attacked an isolated world at the fringes of Imperial space, a well populated mining community, light on military forces, heavy on civilian populace.

Usually reliant on the regular patrol arcs of the battle companies of the Sons of Ultramar Astartes chapter, the Dark Eldar timed their attack perfectly to coincide with the Chapter's recruiting season, where all active companies were recalled to their miniature empire to tithe their worlds for fresh aspirants.

I don't care.

I have been awoken because my black ship is within striking distance of the planet, and scanners picked up the presence of their leader, ARCHON who is on the list.

The list, is as the title suggests, a list of priority targets, earmarked for death by the officio assassinorum.

The list is secret, not known to anyone outside of the order, and is designed to allow agents like myself to terminate opportunity targets without the usual 2 thirds vote required for Assassination.

Tyrants, despots, dangerous aliens and worse, the identities of every list target are programmed into my memory, my systems activating automatically if one is detected, deploying without orders.

The chances of this happening are understandably infinitesimally small, so my hate burns all the brighter when I wake, knowing with certainty that the Emperor himself must have guided the ship here.

My drop pod smashes into a field on the border of a large mining settlement, the last recorded location of the ARCHON.

I glance at my internal Chrono as auto-injectors kick in, flooding my system with narcotics to spool me up to fighting speed.

It is night.

Locking bolts blow out and I am free, running across the open ground to the edge of the town, executor and blade in hand, scanning the terrain for signs of the enemy.

I do not have to wait long for combat.

The town burns, smoke billowing from houses and prefabs, fire flickering from open windows as dark shapes drag screaming civilians from their homes.

My tactical overlay identifies them as tertiary targets ,a squad of Dark Eldar warriors, armed with splinter rifles and led by something called a sybarite.

They are all dead by the time I have assimilated the data.

The Dark Eldar, an entire race of deviant witches, are a challenge to fight.

They are fast, many can match me for speed, but they are fragile, and not of the mindset of a weapon.

Bolt and blade fell them within microseconds, their puny bodies and pathetic armour shatter with equal ease against my weapons.

I am vaguely aware of a number of deep gashes suffered across my body, my corrosive blood dripping to the floor even as my augmented frame sends coagulating agents to the wounds and begins knitting the tissue together.

I stand still for approximately half a second, spending an age waiting for my sensor array to find me targets.

The imperial civilians I have saved cower in fear, unaware of what I am, their collective lungs taking an agonisingly slow breath, ready to scream anew at the nightmare in their midst.

I am gone before the sound leaves their lips, homing in on fresh secondary targets, a group of wych things to the North.

The civilians have nothing to fear from me, being outside of my target parameters.

The wyches are dead.

I find them three streets along from the last pack, dancing in that strange way they do, occasionally darting in to deliver a non-lethal blow to a group of imperial militia men they have surrounded, slowly bleeding out their victims for amusement.

I impale the first one on my power sword, spearing it through the spine and rupturing its chest in a spray of gore, it doesn't have time to yelp in agony before I lift it off the ground and throw it at a second, the flailing body distracting it long enough for my bolts to find their mark, exploding the xenos scum from within.

A third fires a strange pistol at me, which I narrowly avoid by jinking to one side as I rush forward to meet it.

This alien pirouettes away from me, deftly avoiding my killing blow, though not the bolt that I fire through it's kneecap, blasting the limb off at the joint.

Before it has a chance to fall I'm upon it again, ramming the spiked digits of my neuro gauntlet through it's eyes, allowing the deadly toxins to do their work against the vile enemy.

It lets out a shrill wailing sound as it dies and the last wych uses this supposed distraction to attack, having stayed back during the brief combat and circled around behind me.

Unbeknownst to the alien, my sensor array maps all movement around the local area and displays it through my overlay, allowing me to see behind as clearly as though I was looking through my own eyes.

As it darts in I point the executor behind me and hold down the trigger, emptying the rest of the magazine into the xenos at point blank range, splattering gobbets of bone and flesh over my body suit.

Muscle memory takes over while I scan for fresh targets and I'm dimly aware of a fresh magazine being tugged from the pouch at my thigh, swiftly replacing the empty one as the tinkle of brass casings on rockrete rings in my ears.

I smell the next targets before any of my other sensory functions pick them up, a sickly sweet smell of unguents and perfumes favoured by this particular species of deviant, and my head jerks round like a Tarantula gun tracking a heat source.

There.

It's helmet is taller, it's armour is spikier, seemingly shrouded in a cloak of shadows, that particular Eldar is labeled on my overlay with words that sear into my retinas with their potential.

Primary Target.

It's surrounded by a pack of it's fellows in an obvious protective pattern, heavily armoured examples with long, halberd type weapons.

I don't care, my focus is locked on the primary.

I break into a sprint, eager to get to grips with this hated vermin but to my surprise, the entire group turns and runs away from me, darting round a corner, deeper into the slums of this settlement.

I give chase, confident that my pace will soon close them down, that my rage will soon be sated-

Then the whole world turned to fire, and even my hate couldn't keep me from fading to black.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 4**

What happened after that I don't really know.

I am bound with steel cables that bite into my flesh, secured to the front of a strange alien craft as it rises into the air-

I am in a cramped cell, not enough ambient light for even my enhanced vision to see my hands in front of me, were they not bound to my sides.

Barely perceived through the constant moans of unseen creatures around me, I pick up the change in pitch of the ship's engines and feel a slight lurch of my gut, like transitioning into the warp but different.

It's smoother somehow-

**Pain. Like nothing I've ever felt. It's in my blood, like tiny daemons are digging their claws into my veins, strumming my nerves with razor blades. It's withdrawal, the combat stimms have run out, I can't gland any more.**

**I should be dead-**

Different pain now, external, damaging, but nothing compared to the fire of withdrawal. I'm in some dank chamber, surrounded by mutilated corpses of all kinds, still secured to the wall.

An ugly Eldritch face stares into mine, it's slack skin stapled onto it's head in an amateur patchwork fashion. This creature is busy cutting away at me with a wicked looking blade, severing particular nerves, cutting tendons and stripping off portions of skin.

I barely register any of it as I stare at the thing in the back of the room. Taller than the others, spiky helmet…

I voice my rage and struggle against my bonds, my hate wills me to break free and dash the thing's head against the stone wall behind it.

But I'm tired, I don't feel like I used to, need to sleep-

Spiky helmet **ARCHON: Primary target **is close to me, and now it's his turn to stare. I can barely muster the strength to raise my head as it speaks, some foul lilting xenos tongue, each word flowing into the next in a way that feels wrong on an instinctual level.

I am dimly aware of a stinging sensation as I focus on it's helmet, the blank visage now sporting a mask of some sort, a stretched parody of a face.

No. Not A face.

My face.

I try to growl, but all that comes out is a wet gargling noise, my mouth full of my own blood and phlegm and Emperor knows what else.

Archon **Primary target **laughs as it walks away, the noise seemingly universal across the species.

Eventually the tortures stop, external pain receding, just the fire in my gut, the departure of my combat stimms leaving a legacy of churning agony.

It's in this state I writhe invisibly for what feels like an eternity, my forebrain reduced to that of a slavering wretch while some detached part keeps an eye on the chrono diplay.

It figures out for me that the hated xenos have probably got bored, my enhanced physiology not reacting to their attentions, no emotion attached to the pain ruining their enjoyment of the act, or whatever other reasons they have for inflicting harm.

I dare not to assume the inner workings of the enemy, for in their mind lies ultimate heresy.

They must be purged.

A moment of absolute clarity, 32 years into captivity.

I jerk into consciousness with a snarl, my lobo chips ramping me up to combat readiness as far as it can in my diminished state.

Hypertrophic muscles bunch, I strain with all my bio-enhanced might against the chains holding me in place.

I am awarded with a creaking sound as they take up the slack, the subtly barbed interior links biting into my flesh as I work.

Static strength, my sub brain cogitates. As long as I don't tire, the pressure will break these chains and I will be free to end this alien realm and all who inhabit it.

My hate burns strong and pure, my skinless face contorted in rage as the chains work back and forth, minute movements drawing blood which is now running the length of the links and pooling around my feet.

The spindly patchwork thing enters the room as I tire, slumping back into the wall as lifeblood drips away with a steady rhythm.

It must have been drawn by the noise, it glides over in that way of theirs, it's advanced age and hunched stature not enough to eliminate the natural grace of their kind.

Burn the xenos.

With deliberate care, the alien reaches down and find something to the side of my left arm. I feel a pinch of the skin and look down, it has re-attached some kind of feeder pipes into the scarred knot of my arm musculature. I never even noticed they were there before, but now realisation dawns as it leans in close to inspect my ruined face.

They are keeping me alive for something.

They have deliberately waited for my stimms to wear off, and they are feeding me.

To what end I do not know, but I do know that I must destroy them.

"You are a strange little Mon-Keigh, aren't you."

I flinch at the sound, surprised at the recognition of the words. The creature is not speaking low gothic, rather my sub brain has been cogitating this entire time, learning their language and now it filters the understanding to me.

I stare, resisting the urge to lunge forward and rip it's head off, aware that the chains will not yield.

I think for a moment, a thousand burning questions flying around inside my head as my sub brain chatters rhetoric at me.

I speak back, my lipless mouth struggling to form the words, hate surging through every fibre of my being as I commit this heresy.

**Kill the xenos**

"Why do I not grow old?"

The alien is startled, it flinches back more than I did before a wicked smile forms on it's stitched up non-face.

"Strange little Mon-Keigh indeed."

"Answer my question, filth."

It visibly cringes at my words, but replies nonetheless.

"It pains me, Mon-Keigh, to hear you butcher the one true language with your savage tongue. But, I have never experienced one of such simplistic nature learn our voice before, so you will be obliged."

I am emitting a low growl as it rambles. This amuses the creature.

"The rules here are different to what you know, every life form reacts differently but it may be that you simply will not age. Though I suspect it has rather more to do with your crude biology than anything else."

I ingest this for a moment. It's words have a ring of truth about them, I am so heavily augmented, who's to say one of my many subsystems isn't charged with managing my cell reproduction.

**Line of thought irrelevant, purge the enemy**

I silence the lobo-chips and look up to see the spindly alien walking away, it's back to me now.

**Strike now**

My head grows heavy as I slowly fall back into unconsciousness, whatever formula coursing through the feed pipes working it's arcane magic on my boosted physiology.

"Don't hurt yourself anymore, I have plans for you, special little Mon-Keigh."

The words echo around the insides of my skull, merging with the amplified rantings of a lobo-chip sub brain that has no stimms to administer, unable to recognise the futility of it's efforts.

My last thought as I slip away is that there is no pain in my guts anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 5**

I slowly wake, my brain easing itself into consciousness with a laxity I am unused to. It is a barely remembered feeling, a throwback from an earlier time, almost human.

As my thoughts gather themselves I am suspicious, glancing at my mission timer as I wait for whatever comes next.

It has now been 57 years since my initial failure, I am unsure how I feel about it, strangely detached from the whole situation.

I run through a series of static exercises, tensing and relaxing each muscle in place to check for ageing or atrophy, I am perplexed to find everything is as it should be.

Or rather, it is not as it should be at all, as I still feel young and healthy, despite my advanced years.

I try to move my jaw when a searing pain shoots through the muscles in my face, sharp spears jabbing into every nerve, followed by an intense burning itch. Warm liquid trickles into my mouth, my own blood.

I reach up and to my surprise my arms are free, being bound to the wall only by my chest and waist.

I feel the smooth ceramite of a mask, it's artificial teeth and eye sockets unmistakable to the touch and I raise an eyebrow in silent question.

I am rewarded with another burst of pain in the region, the warm tickle of blood running from my brow down the flank of my nose causing me to want to scratch.

They have grafted the death mask to my head.

Curious.

"The time is nearly upon us, I'm afraid." The patchwork butcher states, it's voice like needles being dragged across my spine.

I was not aware the thing had been there the whole time, standing motionless to one side.

What have they done to me?

As it moves closer it continues, it's rasping voice doing a poor job of hiding the smugness in it's words.

"I successfully silenced the other voice in your head, tricky little thing, made up of a network of tiny computational machines rather than a single large device. It was an interesting challenge for one such as I who is more used to being…. Less concerned with well-being when operating on a subject's brain."

Lobo chips, they have disabled my lobo chips. This is unfortunate.

"You are perfectly healthy, I might add. I substituted the crude drugs your system responds to with something a bit more refined, you will find that you can produce a stimulant effect once again."

Not without my sub-brain I can't, the lobo chips control glanding of stimms, the organ is useless without them. The butcher seems overly proud of his work for someone who has restored a vital part of my physiology and made it redundant in one fell swoop.

It stands close to my face again, admiring it's handy work before speaking once more.

"Don't worry, it's only temporary. I need you in this reasonable state to explain what needs to be done. You do feel reasonable?"

It's only then I realise that my arms are free and the creature is within reach. My initial thought is to grab it round the throat and choke the life from it's spindly carcass, but another part of me tells me that this is some kind of test, that I need to hear what the xenos has to say.

I nod slowly.

As I do so I resign myself to my fate. I have been altered by xenos hands, am able to gland their foul narcotics into my bloodstream and my mind had been altered in ways I can barely comprehend.

Whatever the outcome of this sequence of events, there is one inescapable act I must commit.

I need to die.

"The leader of the Kabal I align myself to is getting married." It begins in a conspirational tone, leaning in close as to not be overheard.

I am only half listening, sick to my stomach with the knowledge that I just agreed to reason with the enemy.

"He plans to marry the leader of a wych cult that is in the ascension, therefore improving his political power by a considerable degree.

However, other _parties _have decreed him a threat, and want both of them removed in a very public display, which is where you come in." I take all this in, barely believing what he is asking me to do. Either my senses are failing me or this creature wants me to kill the very alien I deployed to exterminate in the first place!

I nod quicker now, urging him to get on with it.

"let's say I like this arrangement better than letting him live, well it just so happens that he has ordered a great day of games in his own honour."

I am practically salivating at the thought of ripping the enemy to pieces, I know it's not possible but I'm sure I hear the words

Primary target

Primary target

Primary target

Over and over again, scratching at the back of my mind.

"You will be the main event in the arena, my unfortunate gift to my lord. You will be restored to your former glory, all you have to do is murder them. The crowd will eat it up, the drama, the tragedy, the _scandal._"

The butcher thing was grinning as it spoke now, the skin of it's face struggling to match the movements, creasing up into ugly folds from it's lips to cheeks.

How I would love to smash it's head against the floor of this chamber.

"What do you think? Do you think you can do this, my special mon-keigh?"

I nod once, then speak, the words a muffled gurgle under the death mask, each syllable sending daggers through my face.

"I will do this, xenos." I vocalise painfully.

"But be warned, if you are present, if you take but one moment to admire your handiwork, I will annihilate you with as much enthusiasm as your deviant kin."

It doesn't respond immediately but backs away slowly. On some level I feel it recognises the gravity of my words, can hear the conviction in my tortured voice.

It nods once out of reach and leaves with haste, leaving me alone in the eternal twilight of my cell.

I begin running combat scenarios in my head.

Tactical assessment:

The arena is hundreds of metres long, a regular oval shape. The floor is hard packed mud, stained by millennia of spilled bodily fluids. A type of xenos razor wire writhes approximately ten metres from the floor of the arena, topping the walls to the lowest seating area in a closed perimeter.

The stands are full of jeering, screaming deviants, what passes for citizens in this dark place, thousands of them reacting in unison to each blow landed on the killing floor.

The sub-brain informs me that they are spiritually connected to the violence in some way, they seem to benefit from it in a very physical sense.

We'll see how they benefit from my blades.

The wall can be scaled, the citizenry will fall like the choked ranks of rioters under heavy stubber fire in the city of my youth.

The main concern is the combatants themselves. The wyches are formidable fighters, they must be put down as rapidly as possible if I am going to be able to do this.

Finally I look up to the dais, a full level higher than the lowest stands, jutting out over the killing floor to get a better view of the combat.

From my angle I can't see where the Archon

**primary target**

Is but I know he's there.

I cogitate this in under a second while I pace up and down the cell, staring out onto the dirt through heavy bars.

The lobo chips are screaming at me, they know what is out there and they compel me to obey, it takes every ounce of my willpower not to smash myself against the cell door in a blind fury.

Soon.

I heft my butcher's blade in my left hand, testing it for balance, the heavy, unsubtle blade a familiar comfort, thumb absently running over the activation stud.

The sentinel array is alive, streaming constant data into my retinas from the thousands of life forms it perceives as targets, urging me to kill kill kill.

A single wych dances among a gaggle of orks, the brutish creatures bleeding out as they clumsily lunge at the enemy in their midst.

The female xenos nimbly dodges every blow, countering with quick jabs and cuts of her wicked blades, severing tendons and arteries with every blow.

She artfully dismembers her prey rapidly, for the orks do not suffer like men and appear to be poor sport for the inhumanly fast alien.

The collection of fungal wretches are dead in under a minute and the Wych executes a theatrical bow to the crowds, who let out a polite cheer.

The cheer turns into a roar of approval as the wych is joined by four more of her kind, running and somersaulting their way onto the dirt in a loose formation, each one armed differently to the next.

As they reach the centre of the arena, the crowd explodes into a deafening cacophony of noise, systems in my death mask compensate and bring the volume down to a bearable level almost instantly.

I stare intently, wondering what could cause such a reaction and then I see, a sight to make an Imperial heart despair and swell with pride all at once.

Clad in battered blue plate of ceramite and steel, hands shackled with heavy gauge chain, a Space Marine walks into my line of vision, unarmed and lacking any markings.

He is bloody, his helmet-less head covered in scars old and new but he walks upright at his own pace, not allowing the two kabalite warriors flanking him to dictate his movement.

Everything about his body language shouts defiance, a testament to his will, who knows how long he has had to endure torture but his eyes say what matters most.

_You will not break me_

He stops short of the xenos gladiators who goad him with serpentine gestures, the look of utter contempt on his face a sight to behold.

Even I pause to see what happens next.


	6. Chapter 6

One of the warriors slings his weapon and reaches forward, waving some arcane glowing device over the heavy gauge restraints that cover the Battle-Brother's gauntlets.

The manacles fall away and the Marine's hands are instantly wrapped around the throat of the first warrior.

A weak neck snaps like a twig and the armoured giant wheels round, swinging the dead alien by the throat like a club.

The second Warrior lets out a yelp before being hit in the face by his companion's corpse and bones crunch under the impact, leaving two mangled bodies by the Space Marine's feet.

The crowd roar in approval and the Wyches leap into action, spreading out to maximise their angles of approach.

I watch them and analyse. They are supremely skilled but fragile, keeping out of the Imperial's reach as they cut and thrust.

They see themselves as artists, not weapons, and their fighting styles reflect this important fact.

They pirouette and somersault around, putting on a dazzling display for the adoration of the crowd as they wear the noble giant down, nicking armour joints and weak spots with poisoned blades and spinning flails.

I see none of their artistry or skill as they commit to the performance, staining their canvas of dirt with the blood of one the Emperor's blessed sons.

I see weakness.

**Kill them**

Millennia of injury and habits are revealed to me as they move. Here, one favours his left leg, compensating for a knee injury that never healed completely, another only strikes with her left blade despite carrying two, exposing her weaker side to an observer.

**Kill them**

Yet another positions her fighting stance too far in the diagonal, betraying a flaw in the peripheral vision of one eye.

Most importantly of all, they all betray habits.

Being biological creatures they are prone to favouritism and repeat behaviour, and each of the five aliens before me fight in the way that they prefer, such specific ways that it is like reading an open tome.

**Kill them**

Being a weapon, I do not suffer these weaknesses.

The Space Marine drops to his knees, vitae pouring from the numerous wounds across his massive frame, senses dulled by poison, body weakened by blood loss.

A female Wych, **Kill her** the obvious leader, prances up behind him and delivers the coup-de-grace with her wickedly serrated blades, effectively decapitating the giant in a jet of arterial spray.

She basks in his fading life essence as the crowd's cheers reach a fever pitch.

Almost immediately, ancient gears grind into action, retracting the bars in front of me into recesses in the floor as the Wyches **KILL THEM ALL** turn to face me, looks of amusement on their faces.

I close my eyes.

And unleash. Myself.

**Maximum velocity attained: .06 seconds**

**Prioritise targets: #01 Wych cult leader. Engaging**

Burst of bolt fly mid-sprint, adjust, fire again. She avoids first hail of bolts and dodges into the second, confirming projected estimation of intended movement.

Soul sucking bitch dies in pieces, exploding violently over her companions.

**Prioritise targets: #02 Wych (armed trident +net). Engaging**

Next wych has longest range weapon. Rest of magazine empties into him, torso erupts like a burst bag full of rotten meat.

**Prioritise targets: #03 Wych (armed flailed blades) Engaging**

He has predictable attack pattern, feint with flail, dodge left favouring strong leg then attack on flank.

He feints with flail, dodges, lands heavily on left leg. I dart in, blade punches out, stabs through flimsy breast plate and xenos heart. Don't stop as he falls.

**Prioritise targets: #04 + #05 (#04 knives #05 spiked gauntlets)**

They Use the milliseconds it took to kill their kin to time their strike simultaneously.

Left hand side of me, one faints with right blade and strikes with left.

Butcher blade deflects strike into the throat of right hand assailant as her spiked knuckles cut into my flank.

**Injury: right side, 2****nd****/3****rd**** rib. flesh wound. poison detected. neutralising.**

**Damage Assessment: negligible**

Execute short side kick to left side, leg pistons into alien ribcage. Feel bones break and lungs puncture as she lets out gasp of surprise.

Both xenos drop to the ground, don't check to see if dead, look up to Dais.

I wrest control of my senses back from the howling machines in my head and stare with hate filled eyes at the **Archon Primary Target **lookingback at me, accompanied by its unholy bride. The dried out skin stapled to its helmet is fixed in a leering grin, seeming to mock me.

The crowd have gone silent for a moment. Nobody expected this. Five celebrated Wyches, they have been dispatched in the time it takes for one to draw breath.

I fancy it's now that they realise the threat I represent.

Their interest is roused **Line of thought irrelevant, PURGE THEM.**

**Maximum velocity attained: 0.9 seconds**

Run, reload pistol, calculate vector for best landing. Jump.

Sensation of flight is fleeting, clear distance to stands before hearts beat again.

Xenos wire reaches out to catch me as though alive, writhing. Cuts, electrocutes**, **pain receptors alive.

**Injury: Legs, multiple flesh wounds, poison detected, neutralising, electricity detected, minor burns.**

**Damage assessment: negligible, boost Terminus levels, cauterise nerve endings.**

Land in crowd. Smell fear, sweat, excrement. Add smell of blood.

Butcher panicking Xenos like cattle, carve path to **Archon Primary Target**

Pistol bucks in hand, screaming aliens die. Mesmerised by chopping motion of arm.

Up

Down

Up

Down

Up

Down

Hate them.

Kill them.

**Clear cache. Prioritise targets: #01-04 Dark Eldar sub-group Incubi (armed power weapons) Engage based on unit proximity.**

Enemy well armoured but slow. #1 goes down under hail of bolts. Pistol clacks empty.

Throw pistol at #2, #2 dodges and swings sword. Parry, energy sparks between blades, switch parry into stab, pierce throat. Sword stuck, let it go.

Push kick #2 at #3, 3# stumbles, faceplate cracks against knee, #3 goes limp.

#4 stabs with halberd, dodge, trap shaft under armpit, control with right wrist. Smash shaft with opposite arm, continue momentum into spin, reverse grip on broken halberd, swing.

#4 loses head. Continue spinning, track next target, release.

I silence the machines and watch with satisfaction as the blade rams itself through the Wych bride's chest and throws the vile creature off the Dais with a crack of shattered bone.

The Archon steals one glance at his forlorn love before losing it forever, the female xenos tumbling to an ignoble death.

Oblivious to the carnage all around him he howls, Aeons old lungs retching up the raw emotion of loss in an alien tongue.

It is a pitiful sound, one born of an animal that should be long dead.

I look around me at this perverse city which has claimed my mortality, at the panicking things nearby that clamour in their attempts to escape and the armoured monstrosities that flit among them, preying on the weakness.

I hate this so much.

So I roar back.

It is a guttural, too human sound, all my hate and rage and anger spilling out in one long note of defiance. My mouth fills with blood as flesh tears, the mask attached to my face ripping fresh wounds in me as muscles move but I don't stop, my vocal chords are on fire but I don't stop.

The Eldar do. A race sensitive to emotion, they cease their panicking and turn to look, look at this monster in their midst and be reminded that there are things much older and more dangerous than the power they fear, the purity of my hate fixing them to the spot.

The blade penetrates deep. I feel it glance from a vertebrae before exiting my lower back in a spray of gore.

My blood hisses and burns at it runs down the serrated edge, hated Archon leaning in close to savour the killing blow.

I laugh as I stare at the dried mask of my own skin, stretched to obscurity across the enemy's helm.

I'm laughing at the Alien's stupidity. None of these Blasphemous animals has the mentality of a weapon, all make the same mistakes.

The Archon is too fast, too skilled for me to fight. So I bring him to me.

I laugh as I drag him to the ground, blade protruding painfully from my back as my hand grips his wrist tightly.

I laugh as I tear the helmet from his screaming head, and as the talons of my gauntlet peel the flesh from his skull.

I laugh as I drape the xenos' face over my mask, it obscures one eye as the bloody mess slips down my face.

I look up to see a cadre of warriors standing over me, weapons raised, the spindly butcher one step behind.

I'm still laughing as they open fire.


End file.
